Mikel Arteta’s Firm Attitude towards Matteo Guendouzi

DBasia.news – Mikel Arteta’s record as a coach is unable to be juxtaposed with a coach who has given many titles to the club. Arteta began his career as a coach at the age of 38 and Arsenal became the first club he coached after three years as an assistant manager of Manchester City, Pep Guardiola.

Nevertheless Arteta has shown the feasibility of being a manager or coach with insight into his tactics. Not to mention the firmness he showed to Arsenal midfielder, Matteo Guendouzi.

The issue of leaving the 21-year-old player was widely circulated lately like Mesut Ozil. In contrast to Guendouzi, Ozil has reportedly not been played since football resumed amid the corona virus pandemic due to injury.

Guendouzi’s case is a classic problem when he is unable to control his emotions. It was seen when Arsenal lost 1-2 to Brighton & Hove Albion in the Premier League.

Guendouzi choked Brighton’s goal scorer, Neal Maupay and fought him. Pros and cons came afterwards. There are those who judged the incident as mediocre like the club legend, Ian Wright as emotions are needed in football.

Moreover Maupay is considered to have deliberately injured Bernd Leno, Arsenal goalkeeper in the first round. But for those who disagrees believes it was unncecessary for Guendouzi to have been provoked by his emotions and strangle him. Fortunately Guendouzi was not sanctioned by the FA.

After the match Guendouzi was rumored to be no longer comfortable at Arsenal and protested during an internal team squad meeting. Arteta took a firm stand and did not tolerate the existence of selfish players in his squad.

The former Lorient player was not in the Arsenal squad when they won 4-0 over Norwich City in Week 32 of the Premier League, Thursday (02/07) AM. The issue of his departure has been widely circulated and Arteta considered that there was no change in the situation as before.

“This (dropping Guendouzi) is the same reason as last week. Things have to change and nothing has changed,” said Arteta to BT Sport.

Arteta also made Granit Xhaka an example that Guendouzi must emulate. Xhaka’s captain position was revoked due to a disagreement with fans and he almost moved to Hertha Berlin, but in the end he committed and mobilized everything for Arsenal.

“He (Xhaka) is a player whose commitment goes beyond anything normal. He leaves every drop of blood on the field every day and he does the same thing when training,” stated Arteta about Xhaka.

“For me, he is a good example for other team-mates, the way he takes care of himself and lives his profession. I am glad that we can convince him to stay, give him another chance, learn from the mistakes he made and also appreciate the players and people who we have in the club, and support them.”

“When someone is having a hard time, we are right behind them. We can give them another chance,” added Arteta.

Guendouzi’s emotional side is not something new. The former Lorient striker, Jeremie Aliadiere once advised him not to get too emotional if he wanted to last at Arsenal.

“Listen, I am a big fan (Guendouzi). He is like my younger brother and I always tell him that Arsenal would be a great team for his development as a player and as a human being,” Aliadiere told Goal.

“He accepted my advice and came to the club, but I feel Matteo hasn’t grown up. He grew as a player, he matured massively as a player and every year he gets better.”

“But unfortunately as a man, he hasn’t developed and matured like I thought he would by joining Arsenal. I think that’s what he missed and that’s why he didn’t play much under Mikel because Mikel wasn’t really ready for it. “

“He wants players who will do the work for the team and do what they ask. If they are not happy to do that, then he will ask others to do it for him,” he concluded.